A Prayer of St. Gregory of Narek
Grant me life, compassionate one. Hear me, merciful one. Show favor, forgiving one. Save, forbearing one. Defend, protector. Be benevolent, mighty one. Deliver, omnipotent one. Revive, restorer. Raise up again, astounding one. Enlighten, heavenly one. Heal, resourceful one. Grant pardon, inscrutable one. Reward with gifts, generous one. Adorn with grace, affable one. Reconcile, immaculate one. Accept, charitable one. Wipe away transgressions, blessed one.
The Church: Body and Bride
Unlike human beings, God’s actions are in complete harmony with who He is in essence. Oftentimes while acknowledging that a specific action will lead us further away from God—from the Archetype in whose image our nature is created in—we do it, regardless. However, God is not like this; everything He does conforms to His nature—in […]
The Church: A Cosmic Temple
When was the Church established? Many would answer this question by pointing to Pentecost, where the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles in tongues of fire, giving them the possibility of speaking in tongues, preaching about the incarnate Christ. Albeit being a popular perception of the ‘inception of the Church,’ this model tends to omit […]
Bonus Episode: Divine Eros
For this month, we are pausing on analyzing resolved and unresolved controversies. Instead, Fr. Dcn. Symeon Price and I chat about a controversial topic: Divine Eros.
The Remembrance of Evil Entailing Death
By Abraham Ghattas In the Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil, the Church prays to God to “cleanse us from all blemish, all guile, all hypocrisy, all malice and the remembrance of evil entailing death.” It is a given to pray and prepare for future evil that is to come and we pray to God always […]
Drunkenness of Noah
If you have ever visited the Sistine chapel, you will be impressed by the elaborate paintings by Michael Angelo. Amidst these paintings of creation and the flood, we find a marginal event depicted, namely that of the drunkenness of Noah. Us finding the event to be marginal is deeply rooted in our inclination […]
From Paradise to Land
Psychological Background There is a common phenomenon known by psychologists as external and internal attribution. I will give an example to illustrate what this phenomenon entails: Mark and John write a test and get 90%. Mark attributes his own success to his hard work (internal) while he attributes John’s success to how easy the test […]
The Trinity and Us
“True friends face the same direction, toward common projects, interests and goals” –C S Lewis Humanity Divided As time passed by, the world was divided by languages, tribes, occupations, etc. These divisions could not heal unless everyone desired unity. For many generations, humans failed to find a uniting factor. Centuries later, the Logos (the […]
Vision, Knowledge and Unity – Part II
I strongly recommend that you read the first paragraph of my last post published in June before you read this. Now we turn to the theme of knowledge and unity. I must begin with clarifying that in Christianity, knowledge is almost exclusively experiential and intimate. After the fall, Scripture says that Adam “knew his […]
Vision, Knowledge and Unity – Part I
The Mustein’s theory is a psychological theory that explains mate-selection process over three stages: (1) one selects a partner based on external characteristics, (2) one makes judgement about a partner based on similar values and interests and (3) finally the stage of working out future together. These three stages are analogous to three stages that […]